her, in a coaxing tone, "Now then, Lucie, my child, it is half-past
eight. Up, up with you, lazy little one!"

How could he console himself for such lost happiness? He had his son,
yes--and he loved him very much--but the sight of Amedee increased
M. Violette's grief; for the child grew to look more like his mother
every day.




CHAPTER IV

THE DEMON ABSINTHE

Three or four times a year M. Violette, accompanied by his son, paid a
visit to an uncle of his deceased wife, whose heir Amedee might some day
become.

M. Isidore Gaufre had founded and made successful a large house for
Catholic books and pictures, to which he had added an important agency
for the sale of all kinds of religious objects. This vast establishment
was called, by a stroke of genius of its proprietor, "Bon Marche des
Paroisses," and was famous among all the French clergy. At last it
occupied the principal part of the house and all the out-buildings of an
old hotel on the Rue Servandoni, constructed in the pompous and
magnificent style of the latter part of the seventeenth century. He did
a great business there.

All day long, priests and clerical-looking gentlemen mounted the long